Sunday, September 30, 2007

By THOM SHANKERWASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — When Adm. Mike Mullen is sworn in Monday as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he will become the principal military adviser to the president and defense secretary, with the responsibility of organizing, training and equipping the United States’ armed forces.

That is what it says in the statute, anyway. What it means is that he must solve two critical problems.

His urgent task is how to meet the consuming day-to-day demands of the fight in Iraq. But Admiral Mullen knows that someday that war will be over — and it will be too late to decide then what kind of military America will need to defend against threats that may emerge afterward.

That is why it is no less a priority for the new chairman, and his civilian bosses, to plan how the military pivots out of Iraq to face the next enemy, whoever and wherever that is.

[ a) we know where they are: Iran, and b) why do we need to find enemies?]

The debate is just beginning, and it is already dividing the national security elites into tribes.

The future battlefield is presenting itself as three challenges, according to Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Irregular warfare — whether guerrilla or counterinsurgency missions — will remain a threat, said Mr. Krepinevich, who was an opposition analyst during the Pentagon’s quadrennial review of strategy and budgets.

But the military cannot ignore traditional threats posed by nations that are not enemies but may, over time, challenge American interests through coercion, if not aggression. China tops that list.

There is no way to predict which may rise first. That is the focus of the emerging debate — and the prize is how trillions of dollars are divided among four services.

[Yup, the wars are PRIZES!!!

Just like a leg that gets blown of a troop!]

The ground forces, strained and bloodied by the war in Iraq, argue that the new strategic environment will be one of “persistent conflict,” in a phrase of Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff.

Even if there are no more Iraqs, America will be confronted with lots of Afghanistans. This assessment predicts multiple confrontations, some brief and some not. Even short of conflict, troops would be needed to train and support friendly militaries.

This would mean that the Army, too small to sustain current deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, must continue its expensive growth by adding thousands of troops, and must replace vehicles ground down by desert sands.

Admiral Mullen has kept his own counsel on the immediate question of the right number of troops for Iraq. But it is accepted wisdom around the Pentagon that the Joint Chiefs were skeptical of the recent troop increase in Iraq because it could limit their ability to manage other global threats; their endorsement of the “surge” came with a promise to expand the armed forces.

Within the Navy and Air Force, the analysis of future threats would push the nation toward forces that are deployed around the world — but in ways that are less visible and less controversial than large land bases on foreign soil.

Their assumption is that there would be absolutely no public support for another land war as the nation will shift toward isolationism after Iraq. And even friendly governments, stung by domestic protests over the American-led invasion of Iraq and the flawed occupation by a coalition, will be less than willing to have large numbers of G.I.s on their soil.

The Navy and Air Force must take advantage of the high seas and the open skies — out of sight and over the horizon but near potential crisis zones to deter adversaries, reassure allies and remain poised to strike.

The most significant possible crisis situations today are conflict with China across the Taiwan Straits, the nuclear threat from North Korea and, potentially, Iran. Military action would require air and naval power to strike at long distances, submarines to guarantee access through choke points, and Special Operations teams to carry out precision missions on the ground — but not lots of boots on the ground.

[Just told you who we will be going after next!!!

Looking forward to more MASS-MURDERING SLAUGHTER in YOUR NAME, Amurkns?

Fuck you and your war dead!!!!

Those taking part in the emerging debate generally agree that the greatest challenges face the Army, which, they say, must continue to become more rapidly deployable under a program that is creating modular, self-sustaining brigades. The Army must restore balance to its training, which sacrificed skills at the high end of armed conflict, curtailing exercises with tanks to focus on the insurgency fight in Iraq.

The planners also agree that the nation’s other ground force, the Marine Corps, must get back to its historic mission — acting as a quick-response force, with units positioned around the globe aboard ships — and get away from the long-term deployments that have become the norm in Iraq.

The Air Force will need to maintain its technology for the most challenging forms of warfare against a “peer competitor” — code for China or Russia — or an emerging smaller adversary with sophisticated weaponry, like Iran.

[Aaaaah, the BIG MATCH!]

“The air dominance advantage we have today over other adversaries has allowed us as a nation to operate in a world where we do not have to fear for our ground forces and our interests being attacked from the air,” said Maj. Gen. Paul J. Selva, the Air Force’s director of strategic planning. “I would suggest we want to take that same relative advantage into the future and continue to deny adversaries any freedom of action in the air domain.”

But the planners also say that the Air Force must move beyond its love of pilots with white scarves, and focus on less glamorous missions that require air-refueling to extend the global reach of its fighters and bombers and the pilotless vehicles that can spot enemies in hard-to-reach places.

The senior military arbiter in the debate will be Admiral Mullen. Sifting through his public statements, it is clear that his eventual decision on military capacity is not an either-or situation.

When Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sent his senior military assistant to ask Admiral Mullen to name his greatest concern, the answer was “the Army.” But Admiral Mullen also ordered the brightest Navy minds to draw up the first overall American maritime strategy since the early 1980s. The maritime strategy remains classified until its unveiling next month, but in recent speeches Admiral Mullen outlined his vision.

“If we don’t push our maritime services out in the expeditionary fashion that we normally are involved in, that is very dangerous,” he said.

And the admiral says that planning for a future war demands that all agencies of the United States government be involved.

[So it will be WAR FOREVER, huh?

With a MILITARIZED TOTALITARIAN STATE to back it up, huh?

All because of a LIE!!!!!!??

Just gonna INVADE whoever we feel like, 'eh?

ALWAYS GONNA HAVE "ENEMIES," huh?

And CUI BONO, readers?

Neo-Cons, NaZionists, the War Merchants -- and THAT'S ALL!!!!

Have you EATEN ENOUGH WAR DEAD yet, Amurka?

Well, we are going to have PLATE LOADS MORE, so EAT UP!!!!!!!]

Hints of an important initiative can be seen in Admiral Mullen’s approach to how big a fleet the nation should buy. On his watch, the Navy counts more than 270 ships, and the service set a goal of increasing to more than 300. But Admiral Mullen envisions putting to sea “a thousand-ship Navy” — a number he could arrive at by building relations with friendly nations whose vessels would sail as partners."

In fact, the only candidate who can save us from ourselves is Ron Paul!

"McCain Casts Muslims as Less Fit to Lead

By STEPHEN LABATONWASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — Senator John McCain said in an interview posted on the Internet on Saturday that the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation and that his faith is probably of better spiritual guidance than that of a Muslim candidate for president.

“I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, that’s a decision the American people would have to make, but personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith,” Mr. McCain said in response to a question about the possibility of a Muslim’s running for president.

The interview was conducted by beliefnet, a Web site that writes extensively about religious issues of virtually every denomination. After the interview, Mr. McCain contacted the Web site to clarify his remarks, saying, “I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values.”

Mr. McCain said in the interview that he agreed with the results of a poll that showed that a majority of Americans believe the Constitution establishes a Christian nation.

"Deists typically reject supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God does not interfere with human life and the laws of the universe." ]

“I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation,” Mr. McCain said.

[Guess that's why they gave us freedom of religion in the First Amendment, right, Johnny?

Sig Heil, shitter!]

“But I say that in the broadest sense,” he added. “The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn’t say, ‘I only welcome Christians.’ We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here, they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.”

Mr. McCain, who has seen the erosion of his popularity as a Republican presidential candidate from front-runner to near-collapse, has worked hard at mending relations with conservative religious groups. Last year he appeared at Liberty University, standing next to its founder, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the conservative religious leader whom he had once described as an agent of intolerance and a threat to the party.

In a response to the interview that also was posted on beliefnet, David Kuo, the former deputy director of the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, characterized Mr. McCain as “a man pandering to what he thinks the Christian conservative community wants to hear. It is as if he is trying to sound like the ‘agents of tolerance’ he once critiqued, thinking that will cause Christian conservatives to like him. It is a sad performance."

Mr. McCain, an Episcopalian, said he regularly attends a Baptist church and described himself as a “practicing Christian.” He said he has been in regular discussions with a pastor about converting to Baptist. But he said that he would not convert during the campaign because of the perception that he was doing it for political reasons.

“I would not anticipate going through that during this presidential campaign,” Mr. McCain said. “I am afraid it might appear as if I was doing something that I otherwise wouldn’t do.”

Video clips and excerpts from the interview are posted on www.beliefnet.com."

But no, it is the poor U.S. troops who are weary, not the put-upon Iraqis!

What Zionist-controlled HORSESHIT!

"G.I.’s in Iraq Ready for Rest, but Hardly at Ease" By DAMIEN CAVE

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq — On bases big and small south of Baghdad, the scrambled reality of war has become routine: an unending loop of anxious driving in armored Humvees, gallons of Gatorade, laughter at the absurd and 4 a.m. raids into intimate Iraqi bedrooms.

[That is ROUTINE, hanh?]

This is Iraq for the 3,300 soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division’s Second Brigade, and many have come to the unfortunate realization that it now feels more like home than home.

No brigade in the Army has spent more days deployed since Sept. 11, 2001, and with only a few weeks to go before ending their 15-month tour, the soldiers here are eager to go. But they are also nervous about what their minds will carry back, given the psychic toll of war day after day and the prospect of additional tours.

Heartache can be heard in the quiet voice of Specialist Gerald Barranco-Oro, who at 22 is on his second tour of Iraq and will leave for home without two close friends who were killed May 19.

[Awwwww, the poor mass-murdering tool of empire!

And what about ALL the IRAQI LIVES WE HAVE DESTROYED, hanh?

Fuck the Amurkn Army and their war dead!!!!!

FEAST ON' EM, fuckers!!!!!!!!!!]

There are other losses, too: for fathers like Staff Sgt. Kirk Ray, 25, whose 2-year-old daughter screams when he calls because “she doesn’t know who I am”; and for those who must detach to keep going, like Specialist Jesse Herb, 20, who casually mentioned recently that the ceiling above his bed was dented with the bone fragments of a lieutenant who shot and killed himself there a few months ago.

“Every day I wake up,” he said, “I see little pieces of his head.”

Most of the soldiers accept their lot.

[And why I no longer give a shit about them!

Bunch of mass-murdering war criminals!!!!

These wars were STARTED BY BUSH'S LIES, remember?!!!]

Shaped by experience, they fit in here.

[Then fucking stay there! I don't want them back, ever!]

Re-enlistment rates across the brigade are running above the Army’s goals, and soldiers in six platoons said in interviews that they still loved their jobs: the camaraderie, the sense of mission, the ability to play a role in history.

It also helps, they said, that they will head back to Fort Drum in New York with a sense of accomplishment. Several thousand Iraqi volunteers are now working alongside the Americans to fight Sunni Islamic extremists, and once hostile villages in their area have quieted down.

[Yup, surge is always working, even if it is a DAMNABLE LIE!

Hey, I don't care. I don't want the troops home ever.

Why? So they can kick down our doors here under the guise of martial law?]

But even if the gains last — and many soldiers consider them fragile — the consequences continue to add up. From the Second Brigade’s 2004-2005 deployment until now, at least 82 soldiers from the brigade and its attached units have been killed in combat in Iraq. Two others, Specialist Alex R. Jimenez, 25, and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, are still missing after being kidnapped in an ambush on May 12.

Each case is more than a statistic. It is a catastrophe, devastating dozens and inflicting emotional wounds.

[Awwwwww, poor Amurkn G.I.!!!! Well, FUCK THEM!!!!!!!!!

Are the 1.2 million Iraqis we have slaughtered in this lied-into war described as "a catastrophe, devastating dozens and inflicting emotional wounds?"

What, in the Zionist shit rags? Ha!]

Units recover, but burdens remain, especially for soldiers who must step in for those killed. Sgt. Ryan McDonald, 21, for example, filled the squad leader position held by his friend Sgt. Justin D. Wisniewski, 22, who was killed May 19 when he stepped on a pressure-detonated bomb on a trail of soft dirt near Latafiya.

The two young men came up together, studying tactics, sharing drinks at home and competing in Battery A, Task Force 2-15, a field artillery unit based in Mahmudiya. When Sergeant Wisniewski died, Sergeant McDonald was only a few feet away. In the aftermath, he cursed in anger but still managed to console another severely wounded soldier with four words: “I love you, man.”

Recently, Sergeant McDonald found himself near the spot again, leading soldiers through another area littered with bombs on footpaths. He initially played tough when asked about his friend’s death. “You deal with it,” he said, leaning on the brick wall of a house his men were searching.

But he later softened. After warning soldiers away from soft dirt, he said that correcting them always made him think of Sergeant Wisniewski.

“He was tough,” Sergeant McDonald said.

Specialist Barranco-Oro remembered him as a joker, a wiry leader from Standish, Mich., who was nicknamed Ski. Specialist Barranco-Oro had been close not just with Sergeant Wisniewski, but also with another soldier shot that same day by a sniper, Pfc. Matthew Bean of Pembroke, Mass.

Private Bean later died. Specialist Barranco-Oro, a medic, said he still wished he could have been there to help. He was in another patrol area at the time.

The shock, he said, has flooded back as his return home approaches. “You would never, never think one of your friends won’t be there with you,” Specialist Barranco-Oro said. “Never.”

“You make so many plans: ‘We’re gonna go to Bean’s wedding and live it up; we’re going to Standish with Ski and go hunting and to party it up.’”

He leaned forward and stared straight ahead.

“We’ll still go see the families and stuff,” he said. “But it’s going to be different.”

His friends live on through his grief. Songs jog memories. He said he might get a tattoo of their names “so they won’t be forgotten,” and in the meantime, he said, he talked to God about them every night.

“You wouldn’t think it would stay with you this long,” he said.

In fact, going home often creates another cycle of grief, said Lt. Col. Reagon P. Carr, the behavioral health officer for the Second Brigade. Many soldiers return feeling not just down but also guilty for having survived, Colonel Carr said.

The Army screens returning soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder and other signs of trouble, but for many, the struggle has already begun. During one recent week, Colonel Carr said, he met with 3 soldiers contemplating suicide, 12 who could not sleep, 5 who feared returning to a dysfunctional marriage and 16 who said they were disgruntled about their leadership.

“A lot of soldiers here, from what they’ve seen or witnessed, will go back very on edge,” he said. “It is a cumulative effect, especially when you have a short time between deployments.”

The challenge for most consists of figuring out “how to keep Iraq in Iraq and how to keep home at home,” said Capt. Rich West, the chaplain in Mahmudiya.

Several soldiers said they feared free time at home and the thoughts that might arise. Few have told their families the details of what they have seen, or how accustomed they have become to a surreal routine with no 9 to 5, no errands, no bills, no diapers — just a series of moments that snap from frightening to odd, and then back again.

On one recent patrol near Abu Ghraib, for instance, a group of Second Brigade soldiers received wet kisses from a barefoot old woman with tattoos as they searched her backyard for nitric acid that could be used in explosives.

A few days later, during a clearing operation west of Mahmudiya, Sergeant McDonald’s platoon discovered a bearded Iraqi man whose right ankle was chained to a rusty engine block. Dazed and sitting outside, he looked like a victim of Sunni insurgents. The soldiers immediately tensed, weapons ready, until an older man identified himself as the prisoner’s uncle and the man who shackled him.

“He’s crazy,” the uncle said.

Stunned looks appeared all around. “Joe, is he crazy?” the platoon leader asked his interpreter.

When the interpreter answered yes, the soldiers could only laugh. The tension was released.

It was just another sign that the war here, as it continues on and on, can be banal, a groove well worn by a shared sense of humor and knowing glances that say “only in Iraq, only in Iraq.”

[Pffffttt. Yeah, because of what we have done to them!]

Detachment comes and goes. As Colonel Carr said, his treatment in the field must be limited; soldiers are taught to cope so they can go out and do their jobs.

Most do, and do it well. Specialist Herb, a member of the unit searching for nitric acid, said that when he moved into his trailer in July, his trailer’s blinds were still spotted with dried blood from the lieutenant who killed himself. After cleaning the mess, he said, he now sleeps just fine. “Me and my roommate flipped for who was going to live on that side,” he said, sitting behind the wheel of a grumbling Humvee. “I lost.”

With their tolerance for war increased, many soldiers say they feel stronger, having faced a test and passed. Their families may ultimately be the ones left out, as they try to connect with loved ones forever changed.

[I really don't give a shit about Amurkn soldiers and their fucking problems.

Get made at the "support-the-troops" crowd that DOESN'T SUPPORT the TROOPS!!!

Leave me the fuck alone, and just go die already, 'kay?]

This is exactly what many soldiers fear. For Sergeant Ray, who has spent a total of about 30 months in Iraq with the Second Brigade and other units, this deployment has been particularly tough. He and his wife have been deployed since last summer; he patrols south of Baghdad, she works in Mosul, in the north. As a result, his 7-year-old stepson and 2-year-old daughter now live with their grandparents in New Jersey.

He still loves the Army, valuing the work, the brotherhood of his platoon and the military’s promise of financial stability, he said. His wife will get out soon, however, and he cannot help wondering about the war’s effect on his daughter.

“I think she’s just confused,” he said, as the sun set on the date palms south of Baghdad. “She’s right at that age. She turned 2 in August, so she’s just starting to talk and realize what’s going on. And neither one of us is there.”

[Maybe if was a stroy about an Iraqi and his children, I might care.

At this point, AmeriKa and its shothole, propagandistic, lying media can fuck off!!!

If this doesn't get the MSM off its collective butts (because newspapers are not immune, and those that are will be promptly identified as agents of the fascistas), NOTHING WILL!

"Reporting While Black

By SOLOMON MOORETHE police officer had not asked my name or my business before grabbing my wrists, jerking my hands high behind my back and slamming my head into the hood of his cruiser.

“You have no right to put your hands on me!” I shouted lamely.

“This is a high-crime area,” said the officer as he expertly handcuffed me. “You were loitering. We have ordinances against loitering.”

Last month, while talking to a group of young black men standing on a sidewalk in Salisbury, N.C., about harsh antigang law enforcement tactics some states are using, I had discovered the main challenge to such measures: the police have great difficulty determining who is, and who is not, a gangster.

My reporting, however, was going well. I had gone to Salisbury to find someone who had firsthand experience with North Carolina’s tough antigang stance, and I had found that someone: me.

Except that I didn’t quite fit the type of person I was seeking. I am African-American, like the subjects of my reporting, but I’m not really cut out for the thug life. At 37 years old, I’m beyond the street-tough years. I suppose I could be taken for an “O.G.,” or “original gangster,” except that I don’t roll like that — I drive a Volvo station wagon and have two young homeys enrolled in youth soccer leagues.

As Patrick L. McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte and an advocate of tougher antigang measures in the state, told me a couple of days before my Salisbury encounter: “This ganglike culture is tough to separate out. Whether that’s fair or not, that’s the truth.”

Tough indeed. Street gangs rarely keep banker’s hours, rent office space or have exclusive dress codes. A gang member might hang out on a particular corner, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but one is just as likely to be standing on that corner because he lives nearby and his shirt might be blue, not because he’s a member of the Crips, but because he’s a Dodgers fan.

The problem is that when the police focus on gangs rather than the crimes they commit, they are apt to sweep up innocent bystanders, who may dress like a gang member, talk like a gang member and even live in a gang neighborhood, but are not gang members.

In Charlotte’s Hidden Valley neighborhood, a predominately African-American community that is home to some of the state’s most notorious gangs, Jamal Reid, 20, conceded that he associates with gangsters. Mr. Reid, who has tattoos and wears dreadlocks and the obligatory sports shirts and baggy jeans, said gangsters are, after all, his neighbors, and it’s better to be their friend than their enemy.

Sheriff’s records for Charlotte-Mecklenburg County show that Mr. Reid has been arrested several times since 2004 for misdemeanors including driving without a license, trespassing and marijuana possession. Despite his run-ins with the law, Mr. Reid said he had never been in a gang and complained that the police had sometimes harassed him without a good reason.

“A police officer stopped in front of my house and told me to come to his car,” he told me. “I said, no. They got out and ran me down. They did the usual face-in-the-dirt thing.”

Maj. Eddie Levins of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said that officers are allocated to different areas based on the number of service calls they receive, so high-crime areas are likely to get more police attention.

“Where there are more police, expect more police action,” Major Levins said. “Some people think ‘I can just hang out with this gang member as long as I don’t do any crime.’ Well, expect to be talked to. We can’t ignore them. In fact, we kind of want to figure out the relationship between all these gang members and their associates.”

Major Levins said that his fellow officers aren’t perfect and that he was aware of occasional complaints of harassment, but he said that most residents would like to see more police officers on the streets, not fewer.

Even Cairo Guest, a 26-year-old who complained he was handcuffed in his backyard, acknowledged that gang members in his neighborhood were “out of control.”

“There are a lot of guys out here doing stuff they shouldn’t have been doing,” Mr. Guest said.

Still, some civil rights advocates complain that the definition of a gang member is vague. Gang researchers find that most active members usually cycle out of their gangs within about a year. Even active participants might only be marginal members, drifting in and out of gangs, said Kevin Pranis, a co-author of “Gang Wars,” a recent report on antigang tactics written by the Justice Police Institute, a nonprofit research group.

Harsh penalties could actually reinforce gang membership by locking peripheral gangsters in jail with more hardened criminals, he said.

Suburban Salisbury, population 30,000, is about as far from the traditional ganglands of Los Angeles, Chicago or even Durham as you can get. But it has had an outsize voice in pushing for tougher antigang measures since a 13-year-old black girl was inadvertently killed there in a gang shootout after a dance party in March.

I arrived in Salisbury at midnight, figuring that gang members would be more visible after dark, and found a local hangout with the help of a cabdriver.

Striking up a conversation with young gang members in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar town is always a tricky proposition, but the one advantage I figured I had was that I am African-American. Brown skin can be a kind of camouflage in my profession, especially if you do a lot of reporting in minority neighborhoods, as I do. Blending in visually sometimes helps me observe without being observed.

But even when my appearance has been helpful, the benefits rarely survive the first words out of my mouth, which usually signal — by accent or content — that I’m not from around wherever I am.

“What’s The New York Times doing down here?” asked an incredulous black man. He and about a dozen other men were standing in front of a clapboard house in Salisbury. I observed several drug sales there within minutes of arriving.

“Man, you a cop,” said another. “Hey, this guy’s a cop!”

“You’ve got me wrong,” I said trying to sound casual as the men looked at me warily. I started to pull my press identification out of my wallet. “I’m a reporter. I’m just trying to talk to you about your neighborhood.”

In the distance I heard neighborhood lookouts calling: “Five-O! Five-O!” — a universal code in American ghettos for the approaching police. I thought they were talking about me, but thought again as three police cars skidded to a stop in front of us.

A tall white police officer got out of his car and ordered me toward him. Two other police officers, a white woman and a black man, stood outside of their cars nearby. I complied. Without so much as a question, the officer shoved my face down on the sheet metal and cuffed me so tightly that my fingertips tingled.

“They’re on too tight!” I protested.

“They’re not meant for comfort,” he replied.

While it is true that I, like many of today’s gang members, shave my head bald, in my case it’s less about urban style and more about letting nature take its course. Apart from my complexion, the only thing I had in common with the young men watching me smooch the hood of the black-and-white was that they too had been in that position — some of them, they would tell me later, with just as little provocation.

But here again I failed to live up to the “street cred” these forceful police officers had granted me. As the female officer delved into my back pocket for my wallet she found no cash from illicit corner sales, in fact no cash at all, though she did find evidence of my New York crew — my corporate identification card.

After a quick check for outstanding warrants, the handcuffs were unlocked and my wallet returned without apology or explanation beyond their implication that my approaching young black men on a public sidewalk was somehow flouting the law.

“This is a dangerous area,” the officer told me. “You can’t just stand out here. We have ordinances.”

“This is America,” I said angrily, in that moment supremely unconcerned about whether this was standard police procedure or a useful law enforcement tool or whatever anybody else wanted to call it. “I have a right to talk to anyone I like, wherever I like.”

The female officer trumped my naïve soliloquy, though: “Sir, this is the South. We have different laws down here.”

I tried to appeal to the African-American officer out of some sense of solidarity.

“This is bad area,” he told me. “We have to protect ourselves out here.”

As the police drove away, I turned again to my would-be interview subjects. Surely now they believed I was a reporter.

I found their skepticism had only deepened.

“Man, you know what would have happened to one of us if we talked to them that way?” said one disbelieving man as he walked away from me and my blank notebook. “We’d be in jail right now.”

[How's it FEEL, shitstinking elite media person?!

Truth is, I HAVE BEEN WHERE THAT REPORTER WAS MYSELF!!!

Yes, sir, the cops beat me up one night, so I KNOW HOW IT FEELS, bros!

NEVADA, Iowa, Sept. 24 — The ethanol boom of recent years — which spurred a frenzy of distillery construction, record corn prices, rising food prices and hopes of a new future for rural America — may be fading.

Only last year, farmers here spoke of a biofuel gold rush, and they rejoiced as prices for ethanol and the corn used to produce it set records.

But companies and farm cooperatives have built so many distilleries so quickly that the ethanol market is suddenly plagued by a glut, in part because the means to distribute it have not kept pace. The average national ethanol price on the spot market has plunged 30 percent since May, with the decline escalating sharply in the last few weeks.

“The end of the ethanol boom is possibly in sight and may already be here,” said Neil E. Harl, an economics professor emeritus at Iowa State University who lectures on ethanol and is a consultant for producers. “This is a dangerous time for people who are making investments.”

While generous government support is expected to keep the output of ethanol fuel growing, the poorly planned overexpansion of the industry raises questions about its ability to fulfill the hopes of President Bush and other policy makers to serve as a serious antidote to the nation’s heavy reliance on foreign oil.

[Soooo... they made all this food into fuel, and have NO WAY TO USE IT?!?!

GOOD CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!!

HOW MANY PEOPLE STARVED YESTERDAY?

They made FOOD into GAS for NO REASON!!!

Although there is a reason, no doubt: 80% POPULATION REDUCTION.

By ANY MEANS NECESSARY!!!!]

And if the bust becomes worse, candidates for president could be put on the spot to pledge even more federal support for the industry, particularly here in Iowa, whose caucus in January is the first contest in the presidential nominating process.

Many industry experts say the worst problems are temporary and have been intensified by transportation bottlenecks in getting ethanol from the heartland to the coasts, where it is needed most. And even if some farmers who invested in the plants lose money, most of them are reaping a separate bounty from higher prices for corn and other commodities, which are expected to remain elevated for some time.

[A days worth of wages?]

Even so, companies are already shelving plans for expansion and canceling new plant construction. If prices fall more, as many analysts predict, there is likely to be a sweeping consolidation of the industry, and some smaller companies could go out of business.

[Notice how HUGE CORPORATIONS always benefit from government policies -- and NOT the little guys?!

MEANT TO BE THAT WAY!!!]

The falling price of ethanol comes in sharp contrast to the rise in crude oil prices. Lower ethanol prices help reduce gasoline prices at the pump, where ethanol is available, but because it constitutes 10 percent or less in most blends, the impact for the consumer is marginal.

Congress essentially legislated the industry’s expansion by requiring steadily higher quantities of ethanol as a gasoline blend, a kick-start that was further spurred by the proliferation of bans on a competing fuel additive used to help curb air pollution.

But the ethanol industry, which is also heavily subsidized by federal tax incentives, got far ahead of the requirements of the law, rapidly building scores of plants and snapping up a rising share of the corn harvest. Many of those plants have gone into operation in recent months, and many more are scheduled for completion by the end of next year.

[Snapping up MOST of the FOOD, 'ey? No wonder the world is starving!!!]

The resulting ethanol oversupply is buffeting the market. Here in northern Iowa, deep in the corn belt, newly cautious farmers and ethanol executives are figuring out how to cut costs and weighing their options should the situation get worse.

Since construction crews broke ground on the Lincolnway plant in 2005, the price of ethanol on the local market has fallen to $1.55 a gallon from about $2, Mr. Brehm said. Over the same period, the price of corn, representing 70 percent of production costs, has risen to $3.27 a bushel from $1.60. “We’re trapped between two commodities,” he said.

Lincolnway was once virtually alone in the region, but now a handful of new competing distilleries are operating and pouring even more ethanol onto the market, offering blenders more options to negotiate lower prices and driving up demand for corn.

“Obviously, I’m concerned about where we’re going,” said Bill Couser, chairman of Lincolnway Energy, though he added that his company is still making money and he is optimistic about the future.

The ethanol boom was set off when Congress enacted an energy law in 2005 that included a national mandate for the use of renewable fuel in gasoline, obliging the market to consume 7.5 billion gallons a year by 2012, compared with 3.5 billion gallons in 2004.

Already, ethanol producers are poised to outpace that mandate, with capacity expected to reach 7.8 billion gallons by the end of 2007 and 11.5 billion gallons by 2009, although some in the industry are now predicting that the expansion could slow.

The number of ethanol plants in the country has increased to 129 today from 81 in January 2005, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, while plants under construction or expanding have mushroomed to about 80 from 16 during the same period.

“As ethanol supply increases over the next 12 months, the challenge will be to find a home for it,” said Mark Flannery, head of energy equity research at Credit Suisse. “The ethanol surplus is here already.”

[While people go hungry in this world. All based on the Global Warming Scam!

Question: If the MSM has lied to you about so many issues, time-after-time-after-time, why would you believe them about this?

Even when they tell the truth, it is 180-degrees backward and upside down.

So why so ready to believe the Globalist Masters on climate change?

More importantly, why buy in to THEIR SOLUTIONS?

They just left you hungry with one of them!]

Because ethanol is corrosive and soaks up water and impurities, it cannot be shipped through the country’s fuel pipeline network. So it must be transported by train, truck and barge, a more expensive transportation network that is suddenly finding it hard to keep up with the surge in ethanol production.

[So ETHANOL POLLUTES MORE!!!!

What good is being "environmentally-friendly" if there are no pipelines and you have to POLLUTE to get the shit to market?!?

You BURNED OUR FOOD for THIS?]

There is a long backlog in orders for specialized ethanol rail cars to ship the surplus production. Many rail terminals at the ethanol plants do not have spurs large enough to accommodate the long trains that ethanol promoters like to call “virtual pipelines.” And pumps from the storage tanks to the rail cars at the terminals often do not have sufficient capacity to load trains quickly and efficiently.

Phillip C. Baumel, economics professor emeritus at Iowa State University, said that in many cases ethanol producers ramped up their production so rapidly that they gave “inadequate attention to meeting transportation and distribution needs.”

Gasoline wholesale marketers have been slow to gear up ethanol blending terminals, in part because they had to invest simultaneously in equipment to manage low sulfur diesel and tougher product specifications.

Prices of ethanol range widely around the country, even differing from one county to the next in the same state on a daily basis. [The average rack, or wholesale, price reported by the DTN Ethanol Center on Tuesday was $2.42 a gallon in New York and $1.77 in Iowa.] Generally, prices are highest in states farthest away from the Midwest farm belt and in ones that have federal or state clean-air requirements that encourage the use of ethanol.

In a new study, the Agriculture Department warned of “several supply chain issues that could inhibit growth in the ethanol industry,” including a backlog in rail tank car orders that grew to 36,166 rail cars by the end of the first quarter in 2007 from about 10,000 in the third quarter of 2005.

“You just can’t scale it up overnight,” said Chuck Baker, vice president and executive director of the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association.

Stiff blending regulations in some southern states like Florida have also been an impediment to ethanol. And so far, only about 1,000 of the 179,000 pumps at gasoline stations around the country offer E-85, a fuel that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, intended for the five million flex-fuel vehicles on the road that can run on high ethanol blends.

Major ethanol producers and lobbyists describe the developing gulf between production output and transport capacity as a temporary growing pain that will be alleviated over time.

“We have an industry that has doubled in size in just the past couple of years,” said Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association. “It is going to take a little time for the infrastructure to catch up.”

[Maybe you could have built the infrastructure first, 'eh, Bozo?

WTF? Who starts a business this way?

This whole process was just MORE LOOTING by CORPORATIONS -- and they STARVED US to DO IT!!!!]

Some analysts outside the industry think the current market upheaval may be more than simply a hiccup.

Aaron Brady, a director at the consulting firm Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said the current market problems could worsen if combined with other “unintended consequences that may be lurking” from increased ethanol production. He said pressure on corn and other food prices, water shortages, soil and fertilizer runoff could hurt political support for the industry.

[But it is going to solve all our fuel woes! Gimme a fucking break, will ya?

SICK of BEING LIED TO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

“If Congress doesn’t substantially raise the renewable fuel standard,” Mr. Brady said, “then this is not just a short term problem but a long term issue, and there will be more of a shakeout in the industry.”

The Senate has approved a bill that would require gasoline producers to blend 36 billion gallons of ethanol into gasoline by 2022, an increase from the current standard of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. The House did not include such a provision in the version it passed, and it is uncertain whether any final legislation will emerge this year and what it will say about ethanol if it does.

Ethanol proponents say a new energy law is virtually inevitable at some point, and that even if it does not pass this year, lower ethanol prices will provide an incentive for refiners to blend more ethanol into expensive gasoline. A higher renewable fuels standard would force refiners and blenders to work faster to process increased amounts.

A strong energy law would also increase investment and research into ethanol production from nonfood sources, like switch grass, and persuade auto companies to make more cars that run on blends well beyond the standard low percentage ethanol mixture, ethanol proponents argue.

[Those words could have come from George Bush, but they came out of the ass of the Times.

What's the difference between them, reader? Any?

Or is the Times just a LYING, PIMPING, PROPAGANDA RECTAL HOLE?]

“This is an industry that is going to continue to grow,” said Bruce Rastetter, chief executive of Hawkeye Renewables, a private company based in nearby Ames that has two distilleries and two more under construction. “Once you see an energy bill, I think you will see the industry respond again.”

Still, he has dropped plans to build a fifth plant and take Hawkeye public."

[I'm hungry, but I looked in the cupboard and there is nothing to eat.

But I can burn my food to get to the store, to but food I can no longer afford, right?

THE DEMONIZATION of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by George Bush, abetted by the Western media, does not disguise the fact that he has a lot more in common with Bush than anyone cares to explore.

When it comes to human rights violations, one conveniently forgets our policies in Guantanamo, the horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib, prisoners being detained without charges leveled or access to legal counsel, the usurping of civil liberties under the auspices of Patriot Act II.

Ahmadinejad's speech last week in front of the UN dared to shed light on these transgressions of the United States and our imperialistic arrogance.

And as far as nuclear programs go, why shouldn't Iran have access to nuclear weapons? The United States has them, and has no plans for disarmament. After our preemptive exercise in Iraq, why should Iran trust that this country would never use its nuclear arsenal? Until there is a push for universal disarmament among nations, our planet will always be in danger of annihilation.DAVID GERARDLynn

RE THE Sept. 26 editorial "The Ahmadinejad distraction": So the president of Iran was booed so loudly and drew such enthusiastic protests that he fled a college campus; he is despised by his country's students, reformers, and intellectuals, and by "the impoverished masses" to whom he promised to share the wealth; and he has enriched his relatives and cronies to the detriment of the common man? How awful. Good thing that could never happen here.

SHIRANUI SEA, Japan - The dawn is still only a faint glow beyond distant mountains, but fisherman Akinori Mori and his wife, Itsuko, are already hard at work on their boat, reeling in nets of squid, fish, and crabs.

Nothing about this placid scene shows that Japan's worst environmental disaster unfolded here. Starting 50 years ago, whole neighborhoods were poisoned by mercury-contaminated fish from these waters. Thousands of people were crippled, and hundreds died agonizing deaths. Babies were born with horrifying deformities.

Today, the disaster known as Minamata Disease is only a dim memory to the rest of the world, and few outside Japan would recognize Chisso Corp. as the company that polluted Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea with deadly methylmercury.

But for Akinori, 62, and Itsuko, 58, and many others living along these craggy coasts, the disaster never ended. His father and both her parents suffered the ravages of the disease: blinding headaches, crippling loss of sensation in their limbs, insomnia, and dizzy spells.

Both Akinori and Itsuko increasingly feel the disease in their own bones as they age, painful hand and leg aches and loss of feeling and coordination from eating tainted fish as children.

"Now it's starting in my hands and fingers," said Itsuko as she picked strips of seaweed from her nets in the morning sun. "They're turning white and are all bent."

Like the Moris, Japan has never fully recovered. Indeed, the disease played a large role in creating the Japan of today, giving birth to the environmentalist movement here. And like the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and the Union Carbide chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, the disaster became an international cause.

It also forced the country to face up to the price of the industrial miracle it built out of the wreckage of World War II, encouraged other victims of such negligence to sue for redress, and forced authorities to be much more attentive to protecting the public from the mistakes of Japan Inc.

But the struggle is far from finished. At least 2,000 victims have died. Even now, courts are forcing the government to recognize more victims, which some estimate at as many as 30,000. Many are confined to wheelchairs or bed, complaining that diagnosis and treatment are inadequate.

Lawsuits continue, but the government refuses to conduct an epidemiological study to determine the full scope of poisoning.

From the beginning, Minamata Disease was a malady no one wanted to talk about. Victims hid, shunned by neighbors who feared the illness was contagious. Fishermen suffered in silence, terrified that word of the disease would wreck their livelihood.

Economics insulated the culprit from blame for dumping methylmercury during production of the chemical acetaldehyde, used to manufacture products including pharmaceuticals.

In the 1950s, Chisso was a shining triumph in Japan's push for postwar economic development, and it held both bureaucrats and Minamata locals in awe. For more than a decade, the company refused to accept responsibility for the poisoning.

Bent on industrial growth at any cost, the government did what it could to keep news of the disease quiet. Chisso rerouted its wastewater to try to hide the source of the poisoning, thereby polluting a much larger area. The company continued to dump mercury in the waters until 1968.

"The whole country was so caught up in high growth . . . that it was easy to overlook things," said Timothy George, a historian at the University of Rhode Island and author of "Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan."

Chisso first offered "sympathy money" to small numbers of victims and fishing cooperatives in 1959, though it denied culpability. After the government declared the company at fault, Chisso had to pay much larger compensation in the 1970s. Additional victims received money in the 1990s.

Still, critics say the collusion between government and industry continues. The government, for instance, severely limited the number of victims eligible for the largest of the compensation packages - only 2,960, including nearly 700 from a separate mercury poisoning case involving a different company in northern Japan. Of those, 2,078 have died.

The legal battle continues. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that the government was responsible for the spread of the disease.

Since then, an additional 12,000 people have become eligible for medical assistance, though not full certification, and the government is working on a plan to expand compensation to more than 5,000 others demanding recognition."

And now they have gone and injected American children with mercury!

But that's all right!

It is "actually beneficial," and "should reassure parents about the safety of shots their children received."

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Every year, large rallies in the territories and abroad had commemorated the anniversary of the Palestinian uprising that broke out in 2000. But this year, there was nothing, and Palestinians are asking themselves whether anything at all was gained from the revolt.

Many Palestinians say they are worse off now, increasingly worried about internal fighting and further from statehood than when the uprising erupted on Sept. 28, 2000, after former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon visited a disputed holy shrine in Jerusalem and a US-sponsored Mideast peace summit failed.

"It is a silent admission on the part of Palestinians that the uprising has been an unmitigated disaster," prominent pollster Khalil Shikaki said of the absence of commemorations.

For years, Palestinians hit Israel with suicide bombers and rockets, and Israel struck back with aerial attacks, ground incursions, and arrest raids.

But the vastly outgunned Palestinians have been exhausted by the armed confrontation. A total of 4,453 Palestinians have been killed, along with1,114 Israelis.

[That usually gives you a barometer of the aggressor.

Four to-one ratio of kills (no doubt skewed by the Zionist press) indicates who the aggressor is: ISRAEL!!!!!

Israel has built a West Bank barrier, which it says was designed to keep out attacks. But the enclosure dips into the West Bank at various points, putting 8.5 percent of the territory on the Israeli side. In Palestinian eyes, it is athinly veiled land grab.

Israel has reoccupied West Bank towns and cities, sharply restricted Palestinian movement within the West Bank, and banned traffic between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian dependence on foreign aid has grown, and most Gazans survive on less than $2 a day.

[But no problem, no reporting, no nothing.

LAND-STEALING SWINE!]

The number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, meanwhile, has soared, from about 1,650 to 11,000.

[Not a problem with the NaZionist press, though, 'eh?

It always Muslim "hostage-takers" that are the problem.

Not secret sites for secret torture!]

"Everything came to a standstill for seven years," said Adnan Attari, a 30-year-old merchant from a village near the West Bank town of Ramallah. "We didn't move forward but backward."

[You were not going to move anyway, sir!

Israel has made clear they are interested in nothing but war!]

But the lack of commemoration reflects more than the uprising's setbacks. With the Hamas and Fatah factions locked in a battle for power, Palestinians are more concerned about their internal security than their conflict with Israel, polls show.

[Strange how Hamas' electoral victory and "seizure" of Gaza WORKED OUT PERFECTLY for Israel, huh, readers?

CUI BONO, 'eh?]

Fierce infighting began after the militant Islamists of Hamas won 2006 parliamentary elections, then came to a head in June, when Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from Fatah. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, immediately expelled Hamas from power and set up his own rival government in the West Bank.

[But not that they were VIOLENTLY OCCUPIED by Israel -- which just so happens to KILL KIDS (play the interactive video so you can see the beautiful Palestine children Israel took from this earth!)!!!!

But that is not bloody violence like a Muslim would do!]

The Israeli and Egyptian borders with Gaza have been sealed to traffic and goods, and last week Israel declared Gaza a hostile territory because of Palestinian rocket fire into Israeli towns.

Manal Shaheen, a 36-year-old Gaza mother of three, said the current hardships after the Gaza-West Bank breach have eclipsed the uprising. "Our terrible state has made us even forget important dates in our lives," Shaheen said.

Hamas, which led the armed struggle at its height, vowed that the uprising would continue until Israel is expelled from Palestinian territories.

But David Baker, an Israeli official, said the Palestinians have exchanged their "strategic decision to confront Israel via this terror" for a decision to work for a two-state solution. The United States hopes to build on new peace momentum with an international peace conference in Annapolis, Md., in November.

"We do believe that something has happened and for the better," Baker said.

At the United Nations on Friday, Abbas said his government was completely committed to the US-proposed peace conference, and he vowed that the "olive branch of peace" would not fall from his hands.

[Not while USrael is funding his Fatah murderers, anyway!]

Abbas reiterated his government's position that the key to solving the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians lay in directly addressing the divisive "final status" issues, including Palestinian statehood, the status of Jerusalem, and the right of return for refugees.

[You gonna be disappointed, stooge!]

The November meeting proposed by the Bush administration is aimed at bringing together all parties involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, including key regional players such as Syria and Saudi Arabia, as well as Jordan and Egypt, which have already signed peace agreements with Israel.

Hamas has opposed the meeting from the outset, and concerns remain that its continued rejection, along with Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel or to rule out violence against the Jewish state, could scuttle any gains."

[Which is all MORE ZIONIST LIES if you go to the web and check for yourself.

Makes it sound like Jews and Muslims have been at each other forever, when we all know Jews lived in peace and respect in Muslim lands until 1948 and the siting of that shitstink state!

That is what has led to ALL the problems: the NaZionist invasion and occupation of the Holy Land!

However, I would expect nothing less from my shitstink War Dailies!

"Israeli village is laboratory of peaceBy Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times | September 30, 2007

NEVE SHALOM, Israel - The music blared in Arabic as a knot of women twirled slowly around the bride-to-be. Well-dressed onlookers, some in traditional Muslim head scarves, clapped and swayed. On this evening of celebration, the fireworks sizzled, sweets beckoned, and jubilant guests congratulated the Arab bride's parents with a double kiss and hearty "mazel tov!"

Mazel tov?

"It's very normal," said Nava Sonnenschein, one of the Jews clapping at the edge of the dance circle, "for here."

The usual rules of the Middle East often don't apply in Neve Shalom, founded in the 1970s as a utopian village on a hilltop in Israel's midsection. For nearly three decades, its inhabitants have sought to defy the polarizing tugs of politics and nationalism.

Though most Jews and Arabs in Israel are kept apart by segregated communities and long years of mutual mistrust, Neve Shalom and its 250 residents - half Jews, half Arab citizens of Israel - represent a living experiment in integration.

[The one place Israel isn't a rabid racist state!]

Schoolchildren learn Hebrew and Arabic together, a rarity in Israel, and play at one another's homes. Residents enjoy an equal say in running affairs and have elected Jews and Arabs as mayor.

[Not before it was created!!!

But the Zionist press says it's the Israeli village that is the peace lab!

Of course, it is the Israeli nation that is the WAR LAB!!!!!

Don't expect the shitstink Zionist press to frame the issue that way!]

Even the name is bilingual. In Arabic, it is called Wahat al-Salam, though the Israeli government has never recognized that part.

A half-hour drive from Jerusalem, Neve Shalom is both a functioning community and a peace movement showcase. It has a website and a parking lot for buses.

But this is no theme park. The affections and hurts are real, the gains and setbacks intimately felt. Alongside its taboo-breaking, the community has shown how hard it can be for Jews and Arabs to fully understand each other, even when they are trying.

Few know better than Abdessalam Najjar, 55, a village leader with a balding head and pencil-thin beard tracing his jawline. Najjar, the father of the bride, moved to Neve Shalom in 1979 with a new wife, Ayshe, and a heart full of hope.

He was 27 and willing to take a chance, she 19 and in need of some persuading. Najjar, a devout Muslim, had been involved in discussion groups with Jews while studying at a branch of Hebrew University in nearby Rehovot.

The Najjars were the first Arab family to join Neve Shalom. Almost 30 years later, they are mainstays, well liked and respected across the community. Najjar has been mayor and is working with a Jewish colleague in developing the community's new spiritual center for interfaith conferences, lectures on peace topics, and prayer.

Neve Shalom's residents, mostly left-leaning professionals and academics, have been tested by two Palestinian uprisings, war in Lebanon, and a steep deterioration in relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel.

[How about the Arab's being tested by withstanding Israel's mass-murdering ways?

The village today carries tempered aspirations and scars from past political fights. Not all of these are over yet.

Jewish and Arab residents spar over whether Neve Shalom Jews should perform compulsory service in the Israeli army. Arabs in Israel are not summoned to serve, and many object to residents of a "peace village" enlisting in the army.

Some residents from both groups, now in middle age, fear that the village has lost some of its political daring.

It is perhaps telling that the burning issue these days is not potential peace talks but whether Neve Shalom residents can formalize their hold on the plots where they built homes years ago on land that was shared without private ownership."

WASHINGTON - The FBI has begun the most comprehensive realignments of its counterterrorism division in six years so it can better detect the growing global collaborations by terrorists and dismantle larger terrorist enterprises, according to senior bureau officials.

The bureau will merge its two international terrorism units - one for Osama bin Laden's followers and the other for more established groups such as Hezbollah - into a new structure that borrows both from Britain's MI5 domestic intelligence agency and the bureau's own successful efforts against organized-crime families, Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, said in an interview.

[Talk about your GLOBAL GOVERNMENT at work!

So they are going to do what, FRAME HEZBOLLAH now?

What has Hezbollah done other than KICK ISRAEL'S ASS?

I guess that's why they make the list, 'eh?

To be blamed for the next "terror attack" so we can BOMB IRAN!!

NOT FOOLEYED anymore, shitters!]

The new approach is meant to channel raw intelligence and threat information through "desk officers" with expertise on specific world regions or terrorist groups, allowing those individuals to spot trends and set investigative strategies for field agents and joint terrorism task forces that collaboratewith local law enforcement, Billy said.

That change emulates aspects of Britain's MI5, which bureau critics and members of the Sept. 11 commission have frequently cited as a model for fighting domestic terrorism. "We want to place these people together so the intelligence is being shared across each way, left, right, up, and down, and that, in turn, will help drive the tactical aspect of how we focus our resources," Billy said.

[And CREATING IT, too!!!!]

Borrowing from its mob-busting strategies in the 1980s, the bureau will encourage counterterrorism agents to forgo immediate arrests when an imminent threat is not present, allowing the surveillance of terrorism suspects to last longer. The aim is to identify collaborators, facilitators, and sympathizers who increasingly span across multiple groups and countries, Billy said.

"We want to be in a position where we have [threats in] not only one area of the country identified but have the entire picture that may be taking place throughout the United States identified and . . . strategically focus our resources in a way that would give us the better chance of dismantling a group, as opposed to only identifying one aspect of a much larger threat," Billy said.

Counterterrorism agents were told about the changes in a closed-door meeting at headquarters two weeks ago, but no public announcement has been made. FBI officials hope to complete the realignments by year's end, but they acknowledge that many details remain to be worked out.

The changes have been driven partly by a growing number of FBI cases involving self-styled terrorist cells inside the United States that were inspired by Al Qaeda and bin Laden but receive support, advice or encouragement from disparate sympathizers across the globe, making group allegiances far less important.

"You don't want to limit yourself to just assuming that one person who is a member of a certain terrorist group won't particularly try to recruit or bring into the fold others overseas," Billy said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller mentions the connections between two men in Georgia charged with terrorism support, 17 suspects rounded up in Canada in a bombing plot, and terrorist investigations in Britain, Denmark, and Bangladesh. The defendants' ethnicities are diverse, including Somali, Egyptian, Jamaican, and Trinidadian, officials said.

Officials said the suspects were linked by a lengthy investigation involving US allies that tested the FBI's ability to keep collecting intelligence beyond the traditional point, when arrests might have been made in the past.

The effort required diplomacy with cooperating countries that became concerned that the terrorist cells might be moving toward an operational phase. A meeting was held last winter among international law enforcement agencies to decide when arrests should be made in each country and how to keep surveillance going, officials said.

Other cases have also produced evidence of terrorist groups transcending borders and group affiliations. Sheik Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, a Yemeni cleric, was recently sentenced to 75 years in prison on charges that included conspiring to support both Al Qaeda and the Palestinian group Hamas. The cleric was caught in 2003 when FBI informants met with Moayad in Germany and secretly recorded him promising to arrange money for both groups. An FBI affidavit detailed how the sheik moved easily between Hamas and Al Qaeda circles, including meeting bin Laden.

[As always an FBI informant in the center of the cases: the AGENT PROVOCATEURS!!!!]

David Laufman, a former Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted several of the government's major terrorism cases since the 2001 attacks said in an interview: "The Internet has become the most significant recruiting device for multinational sources of Jihadist talent. It cuts across nationalities and ethnicities."

But Laufman, who is now in private practice, cautioned that the FBI reorganization must "overcome the agent culture of the bureau" and allow intelligence analysts to drive the case agents, much like MI5's domestic intelligence, which drives the investigations of Scotland Yard in Britain.

"The key to making this successful is to build a first-class analytical cadre, give counterterrorism analysts equivalent stature to agents in the FBI's counterterrorism culture, and create an environment where analysts and agents continuously and seamlessly work together to identify relationships, sources of funding and operational plotting," Laufman said.

Specialists said the bureau's future success also depends on attracting more Arabic speakers and intelligence analysts, and keeping them long enough to develop deep subject expertise."

[So you can what, plant more informants to drive dumb shit patsies to show trials, FBI?

AmeriKa's MSM already got the Amurkn public and convinced that the surge worked, believe whatever the military says, and don't question or you are a traitor.

Never mind the lies those mass-murderers keep shit-shoveling!!!!

And once again the Globe removed it from the web!

Really getting sick of the censorship:

"US Army Sniper Sentenced in Iraq Deaths

Saturday September 29, 2007 7:46 PM

By KATARINA KRATOVAC

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - The court-martial that cleared a U.S. Army sniper of two counts of murder sentenced him Saturday to five months in prison, reduced his rank to private and ordered his pay withheld for planting evidence in the deaths of two Iraqi civilians.

Sectarian violence, meanwhile, claimed at least 40 more lives across Iraq, with a flurry of attacks around the northern city of Mosul where bombs, gunmen and mortar fire killed 14.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed by gunfire, one in Diyala province north of Baghdad and one in a southern district of the capital.

Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval, 22, was acquitted Friday of murder charges in the April and May deaths of two unidentified men. The five-man, two-woman panel decided he was guilty of a lesser charges of placing detonation wire on one of the bodies to make it look as if the man was an insurgent.

``I feel fortunate that I have been served this sentence,'' Sandoval said. ``I'm grateful that I'm able to continue to be in the Army.''

Military prosecutors had argued Sandoval should be sentenced to five years in prison.

The Laredo, Texas-native had faced five charges in the deaths of the two unidentified Iraqi men. In dramatic testimony during the four-day court-martial, one of Sandoval's colleagues, Sgt. Evan Vela, testified he had pulled the trigger and killed one of the men Sandoval was accused of murdering.

Vela said the sniper team was following orders when it shot the men during two separate incidents near Iskandariyah, a volatile Sunni-dominated area 30 miles south of Baghdad, on April 27 and May 11.

Vela and Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley will be tried separately in the case. All three soldiers are part of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska.

Gary Myers, one of Vela's lawyers, claimed this week that Army snipers hunting insurgents in Iraq were under orders to ``bait'' their targets with suspicious materials, such as detonation cords, then kill those who picked up the items. He said his client was acting on orders.

Asked about the ``baiting program,'' Capt. Craig Drummond, Sandoval's military defense attorney, said it was unclear ``what programs were going on out there and when,'' especially ``if there were things that were done that made the rules of engagement not clear.''

Vela goes before an Article 34 hearing, the equivalent of a civilian grand jury, on Sunday. The U.S. military, which initially said the hearing would be open to reporters, subsequently closed the proceedings. Hensley, who has already faced such a hearing, goes on trial Oct. 22.

In violence Saturday, Iraqi soldiers acting on a tip tried to intercept a suicide driver as his pickup truck headed toward Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. As the Iraqi Humvee neared the truck, the driver detonated his explosive payload, according to the officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Three soldiers and three civilians were killed, the official said.

Twenty-five miles northeast of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, a parked car bomb exploded in Hamdaniyah, killing four policemen and two civilians, according to police Brig. Mohammed al-Wagga.

Also in Mosul, a drive-by gunman killed a top local Sunni religious figure and a journalist died in a mortar attack.

At the end of a three-day trip to Syria, Iraq's Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi said his country would not be used as a base to launch attacks against Iran or Syria.

The Sunni vice president said he discussed security and other regional issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday.

In response to a reporter's question about a possible U.S. military strike against Iran, the Iraqi vice president said: ``Iraq does not accept that its territory be used for any aggression against any neighboring country.''

The government, meanwhile, announced a start date for the reconstruction of a revered Shiite shrine badly damaged in two bombings, one of which unleashed the sectarian strife that has shredded the fabric of Iraq society.

Rebuilding of the al-Askariya shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, will begin after the holy month of Ramadan in mid-October, said Haqi al-Hakim, a construction adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The first attack on the shrine's golden dome in February 2006 by suspected al-Qaida bombers ignited sectarian fighting between Sunnis and Shiites that has plagued Iraq ever since. A second attack a year later toppled the towering minarets of the shrine. "

So according to the New York Times, no one died in Iraq yesterday, which means it's still a surge success.

Just a reminder, reader, that the death toll being about 35 people are being killed every day -- on the rise over the summer -- and the number of Iraqis killed by the surge is around 300 per day, 10,000 per month by U.S. operations in that country, I am beginning to believe that the Muslims (who have inter-married and lived together for thousands of years) are not killing each other at all.

Any coincidence that the sectarianism lie we are told did not exist until AFTER WE GOT THERE?

Description: There are HUNDREDS of THEM!!! They are clogging the street as far as the eye can see.

And yet, "The mullahs and their students have earned little public sympathy in their own neighborhood or around the country... public reaction was muted... but the government changed its tactics... reflect[ing] concern for the public backlash... and the danger of civilian casualties and damage to the holy site of a mosque.

And yet, " the cleric is an unpopular extremist (click down once and enlarge, then run the slide show and PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION to photos 7 thru 11 -- especially photo 8 and what the women are doing).

And yet, "Anti-Musharraf protesters took to the streets of every major Pakistani city to blame the US-backed leader for the violence at the mosque... More than 1,200 people chanted slogans denouncing Musharraf after they emerged from mosques after afternoon prayers in Karachi, the country's largest city... Small rallies were also held in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Islamabad."

So WHATEVER, SHIT MSM!!!]

Now back to today. And what the Globe does is rip the AP story off the web.

Why? Because as newspapers die, and the web grows, they need to censor.

So they pick up another story that removes this lovely little phrase:

"Police arrested hundreds of opposition activists over the last week and sealed off the capital.... At least two lawyers suffered bloody head injuries."

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - In a stone-throwing melee in the heart of Pakistan's capital, riot police yesterday fired tear gas and beat lawyers and human rights activists protesting President Pervez Musharraf's plans to have himself reelected while serving as chief of the military.

Dozens of people were reported hurt in the daylong clashes, which marked an escalation in political tensions that have unsettled Pakistan for months amid a nationwide grass-roots movement to oust Musharraf. Until now, even very large antigovernment protests have been mostly peaceful.

The violence followed a decision yesterday by the country's Election Commission to give final approval to the leader's plans to seek a new five-year term in a vote to be held by lawmakers Saturday - a vote he is almost certain to win.

A day earlier, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Musharraf's reelection by dismissing legal challenges to his standing for office in his dual roles as the country's civilian and military leader.

The Supreme Court had left the door open to Musharraf's disqualification by the Election Commission, but that body, which was handpicked by the Pakistani leader, formally accepted his candidacy.

Musharraf's ruling party has said he has enough votes to win when the national and provincial assemblies vote, and his main opponent, retired Judge Wajihuddin Ahmed, has acknowledged that he is trailing.

Musharraf seized power in a coup eight years ago and went on to become a key US ally against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But his prestige and popularity have been diminished greatly in recent months.

During yesterday's clashes between police and hundreds of protesters, clouds of tear gas drifted up and down the capital's broad, tree-lined Constitution Avenue.

At one point, tear-gas canisters landed inside the manicured grounds of the Supreme Court complex.

Outside the Election Commission building, across the street from the Supreme Court, some of the protesting lawyers wielded wooden staves to battle police, their black coats flapping and black neckties flying. Lawyers have played the leading role in the anti-Musharraf movement since March, when the general tried to fire Pakistan's respected chief justice.

[They sound like the LADIES of the Red Mosque!!!

I LOVE THEM ALL!!!!]

More than 1,000 police and paramilitary troops were deployed in and around the court complex and the Election Commission building.

"This is the face of martial law," declared lawyer Hamid Khan, who represented cricket-star-turned-opposition-politician Imran Khan in court challenges to Musharraf's eligibility to seek reelection. "We don't accept this election process at all. How can it be fair when one candidate has a uniform and a gun?"

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has said she will return from self-imposed exile to lead her party in that contest, but her camp is still engaged in power-sharing talks with Musharraf.

Another potentially important player in the general elections, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was deported earlier this month by Musharraf's government when he tried to return to Pakistan."

[Who cares about the political bullshit!

They are beating down their own people in the streets -- a trait that seems common amongst ALL GOVERNMENTS!!!]

Here is the Times' shit-spew on it:

"Lawyers Battle Police Over Election Ruling in Pakistan

By CARLOTTA GALLISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 29 — Riot police officers fought with batons and tear gas against lawyers protesting President Pervez Musharraf’s bid for re-election outside the Supreme Court and Election Commission on Saturday. Dozens of lawyers and some journalists were beaten and a number arrested in the clashes, witnesses said.

[So you guys and your bosses gonna GET OF YOUR ASSES and start REPORTING the TRUTH?!?!

I ain't holding my breath!]

As the mood grew uglier, the state minister for information, Tariq Azim Khan, was badly beaten by angry journalists as he was leaving the election commission building.

[If only AmeriKa's press would REACT THAT WAY!!! Halle-lujah!!!]

The lawyers were protesting a Supreme Court ruling Friday that cleared the way for General Musharraf’s re-election as president while he is still in uniform. They tried to march on the Election Commission, which was examining nominations for the Oct. 6 presidential election on Saturday morning. It was the first time since July that the black-suited lawyers, who campaigned for months against General Musharraf’s dismissal of the chief justice in March, have come out in force on the streets here in the capital.

As they marched the hundred yards from the Supreme Court down Constitution Avenue to the Election Commission, police officers with helmets, shields and long sticks blocked their way. Lawyers began hurling stones, and the officers retaliated, throwing the stones back and firing tear gas, and then charging and beating protesters.

Plainclothes officers hauled lawyers off to police vans, including one of the leaders of the movement, Ali Ahmad Kurd. Aitzaz Ahsan, another leading member of the lawyers’ movement, was bludgeoned by a policeman who hit him with a heavy brick in his stomach.

Despite the commotion outside on the street, the Election Commission approved General Musharraf’s nomination for the presidential election, as well as those of two of his opponents, the former Supreme Court judge, Wajihuddin Ahmed, and the Pakistan Peoples Party politician, Makhdoom Amin Fahim. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Mr. Khan, the information minister, were present as supporters of General Musharraf’s nomination.

Lawyers representing Mr. Ahmed lodged objections to General Musharraf’s candidacy, in particular that he holds the position of chief of army staff, has already served the limit of two terms, and should not be elected a second time by the same assembly. But the Election Commission did not accept the objections, and the lawyers emerged saying they would now take the matter to the courts on Monday.

“Twenty lawyers have been injured,” said Mohammed Ikram Chaudhry, former vice president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. “Three journalists were given a fierce beating. A lot of lawyers were taken away. They will use force against anyone who is against them,” he said of the authorities.

“We wanted to go to the Election Commission and demonstrate in a peaceful manner,” said Rafaqat Bashir, 32, an advocate from nearby Rawalpindi, who was carrying a police cane which he said he had snatched from a policeman beating him.

“The police hit me, and this is his stick,” he said. He said he had come with 300 other lawyers, traveling in twos and threes into the city since early morning, to protest General Musharraf’s military rule. “He has no right to rule. He is a soldier, he should serve on the borders,” he said.

In his office inside the Supreme Court, Mr. Ahsan seemed to recognize that the lawyers could no longer stop the Oct. 6 election, but he said the lawyers would continue to expose the illegitimacy of General Musharraf’s rule. “Elections are all about a mandate from the people,” he said. “This is going to be a virtual election. It’s not an election. Nobody is deceived.”

The lawyers would return to the courts to challenge General Musharraf’s re-election and would be out protesting at every court hearing in the coming days and weeks, Mr. Ahsan said. “The man is on very thin ice and he is slipping,” he added."

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